Diary of a Mad Editor

During my participation in NanoWriMo, it occured to me that perhaps the image of a writer has changed. By that I’m speaking of that mental image aspiring wannabes conjure when it first occurs to them to write. It sort of goes with the territory that the act of writing takes on an aura of romance and mysterious cool to the beginner. That feel that if one writes long enough evenually one will transform into that ideal writer of their imagination. The Hemingway-esque writer laboring over the Great American Novel in a Paris cafe. The Depression-era writer churning-out pulp in New York hotels for pennies per word. The post-war Beat writer spewing unruly gobs of words with the aid of drugs and not enough sleep. An uptight college professor teaching writing in some East Coast creative writing program who wrote one minor novel years ago and has been writing his second novel for twenty years without end. Or maybe Bukowski beating beer-stained words with the old typer in a seedy LA apartment. But the Internet and events like NanoWriMo have changed all that. It’s kind of killed the romance. The line between writing and being a writer has blurred. It’s become more communal and less of a lofty, isolated activity. Perhaps, it’s even become artless. When anyone can post anything to a blog or upload a digital file, the image of the writer is changing. The image is less idealized. No one dreams about sitting in that Paris cafe anymore and the seedy apartment will usually receive a quaint, nostalgiac, "been-there-done-that" response from many. Nowadays, they just write — no romantic notions or daydreams. Writers write and are therefore writers. Not defined by their aspirations,but by their actions.